Wednesday, August 14, 2013

A PROBLEM WITH A THESIS - MY TRASHY POST

Linda Barnard, Entertainment writer for the Toronto Star, reviews the new Paul Schrader-directed, Lindsay Lohan vehicle The Canyons, and suggests in her opening salvo that the former child-star's "screen career is well and truly done". On the surface that comment would make sense. My take on that would be that Ms. Lohan's career was finished after she repeatedly acted like a jerk and an illicit clown off-camera.

I'm surprised that Schrader even wanted to work with Lohan, considering she has a reputation for being 'difficult', including her "tardiness". Does she think she's Elizabeth Taylor on Cleopatra (1963), or Sophia Loren on El Cid (1961)? At least Taylor and Loren were stars of some weight. "Star behaviour", as annoying as it is, can be accepted when one is a real star.

2 comments:

I haven't yet seen "The Canyons", so I'm going to reserve judgment until I do, but I sense that the project called for the leads (not just Lohan) to bring a little bit of themselves to the narrative, so Schrader probably cast her with that in mind. However, he surely must have known what he was getting himself into. On the other hand, since he had a troublesome decade developing two huge projects that fell through, he may have quietly accepted his fate working on this comparatively miniscule (but troubled) effort. But still, I do see why he would want to work with her. All personal baggage aside, she's good when she applies herself. She surprisingly stole the show in Robert Altman's "A Prairie Home Companion"; that old rascal always knew how to get good work out of "enfants terribles", since he was one as well.